Humans are no longer the masters of flight! (Okay, birds and bats were really the masters of flight anyway, not us, but we're talking animals who use means beyond their own biology to fly!) Remember the movie Epic where everyone rides birds or bugs around to fly? Apparently weasels do the same thing. The next thing we know, they'll be wearing acorn helmets!
My teen is a big fan of thrift store makeovers and they love to turn things they found into something totally new. Many of the makeover videos we watch just turn items into updated versions of themselves--new paint and a new look, but not a new purpose. That's completely fine, but I really like the ones where people find entirely new uses for thrift store finds!
Generally I'm not a big fan of the word amazing, but these flowers truly amaze me. They look just like hummingbirds and I can't believe it! Also known as green birdflowers, they look like rows and rows of the tiny birds, making me wonder what exactly nature is playing at. Are we all really just copies of plants somewhere on the planet? Come on, Mother Nature, what gives!
Pizza and spaghetti sound so yummy right now, although after all of the spring fish fries I now have fish and spaghetti on the brain! Weird, I know. I need to go to White Center Pizza for my fix. They have everything I want when I'm craving Italian, from lasagna to manicotti, and they even have chicken and ribs for my partner who would rather have that kind of fare.
You've played Sushi Go, now it's time to give Maki Staki a try! Maki Staki is a card game for all ages. To play, you collect cards to make your own maki roll (stack of cards). You also play action cards as you go, and you try to avoid wasabi burn and fatal fugu while you play. You can also get past them with... the conveyor belt! If that sounds like a game for sushi lovers, it really is, but it's also fun for everyone else!
It's not really a symbiotic relationship, since the frogs don't particularly help the elephants back, but have you ever thought about how elephant prints help other animals? I've read about how elephants eat so much grass that their droppings make great recycled paper; in fact, I bought some for my teen once and they loved it. It turns out that the footprints left behind by elephants are extremely helpful for another animal--frogs!
NASA is sending a mission to Titan in search of life, and Dragonfly, the drone, looks pretty incredible. Saturn's moon Titan is an ocean world, and its conditions and organic material make it a likely host for some kind of life in the universe. There are seas of methane and equane on the planet, and even though the atmosphere there is four times denser than our own, that doesn't rule out the possibility of life.
We are living in one of the most inventive times to be alive, and that includes food inventions! Chefs are constantly coming up with such clever, creative ideas that it just wows me. I could look at food on the Internet every day and not get bored with it just because there's always something new and exciting to see.
Independence Day is one of my least favorite holidays. Spending money on fireworks, which my partner enjoys, is such a wasteful and dangerous activity to me; you might as well set your money on fire. But since he loves it, I try to be supportive, even if to me celebrating would mean not singing about bombs and rockets but protesting the injustices that occur here every day. My partner does support me in doing that much more often than once a year, I must admit. But I also hate how the fireworks disturb the animals.
Some people argue that poetry doesn't translate well to the modern world, including my teenager, whom I've got reading Shakespeare's sonnets at the moment. They've warmed to the sonnets, but we've had many a discussion about how poetry is in everything from the songs they love to the movies they watch over and over again. There's slam poetry, which I think is incredible, and there are even online poetry resources like AllPoetry and various blogs that discuss the art.
It never ceases to amaze me that the people who call me a snowflake for arguing that children shouldn't be kept in cages, the attorney general has to uphold Supreme Court rulings, that bullying and warmongering aren't presidential activities, etc. are the ones who cry foul over a black woman being cast as Ariel, the Little Mermaid, in Disney's upcoming adaptation.
With today's current heat advisory, I'm ready for something super refreshing to cool off with. This list of cocktails looks really good. Watermelon motijos and rose sangria look so good, as does the coconut water champagne fruit punch! I don't have most of these ingredients at hand, though, and I'm looking for something really good. I thought I had some frozen fruit but I gave it all to my chickens to cool off with!
It's a scorcher where I live today and I wouldn't dream of leaving my dogs or cats in the car for any reason, but I don't own a Tesla.
Hey bibliophiles, are you also into adventures, role playing, D&D or just general fun quests that make you feel like Atreyu searching for a cure for the Emperess? If so, this is the summer read-a-thon for you. It's called The Book Junkie Trials, and it's hosted by booktuber Rachael Marie.
I'd ask if anyone else out there is as obsessed with Stranger Things as I am, but I already know the answer to such a silly question! What's exciting, especially after such a harrowing season, is to see so much Stranger Things merch everywhere you go. There are the usual pops, apparel and such online at the regular haunts like Hot Topic, but just going to Target yesterday I saw SO much stuff, including pool inflatables, games, Funko pops, blankets and even two different types of Stranger Things ice cream!
Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
Ambient office = 128 nanosieverts per hour
Ambient outside = 117 nanosieverts per hour
Soil exposed to rain water = 119 nanosieverts per hour
Part 1 of 2 Parts
I have written about the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station near San Diego, California on a number of occasions. The plant had to be shut down permanently after new steam generators were installed that caused vibrations which cracked pipes. There has been a lot of confusion and court battlers over who was responsible for the problem with the steam generators.
